


The Law of Seven

by Sevargs



Series: Seven [1]
Category: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super
Genre: Angst, Author is writing out all his kinks and you're all invited, But not without a huge mess being made, Complicated Relationships, Crossing Timelines, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Eventual Resolution, GT Goku / DBS Vegeta, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, NSFW, Parallel Universes, Self-Destruction, Tension, Unrequited, Vegeta (Dragon Ball) vs Feelings, Vegeta being Vegeta (Dragon Ball), Vegeta vs Vegeta figuratively and literally, implied Vegeta wants Older Goku, that tag is a figment of your imagination and you cant see it, yes that tag means what you think it means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevargs/pseuds/Sevargs
Summary: He should never have opened the door to a Kakarot that wasn't from his world. But knowing they'd never see each other again afterwards, made it perfectly fine to submit to their otherwise unrequited fantasies....Nothing could go wrong if the other two didn’t find out, right?





	1. Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning, this does not follow GT or Super’s timeline to any significant impact that you need to have actually seen either of them to follow the story. It just takes the elements of each and diverging timelines/ different super saiyan forms. You are safe to proceed with no knowledge other than that.

“If you leave another mark on me, Kakarot... so help you,” the snarl came as a breathy warning against the accused man’s ear. Those guilty teeth threatened his skin almost immediately—despite the warning—to do exactly opposite of what was being asked, almost as if he had challenged him instead. What a typical thing of him, to lace his response with such cheekiness. Between his bold, grazing nips, he parted his lips and dipped his warm tongue into the curve of his neck. How difficult it was to tell him to not leave marks…

“Sorry,” the muffle at his throat left a vibration against his bare skin that made him shiver, despite being warm. So warm. Too warm. The hands on his body left fire where they touched. Large fingers pressed into his sides, gripping his ribs and drawing his body closer. Succumbing to it was an admission of guilt; and he curled an arm up to snake it around him, tracing his fingers along the thick muscles drawn tight along his back—between his shoulders. 

Everything about it was horrendously wrong. Everything from who it was, to how it happened. But those factors did nothing at all to deter either of them. His stifled lazy apology didn’t hold even the slightest bit of a remorseful tone and he certainly didn’t hesitate at all in what he was doing. Vegeta himself didn’t have the presence to stop it, either. The difficulty in feeling the weight of the wrong they were committing, landed somewhere in a hazy, forgotten place between sheets they once occupied—tangled and lost, with little hope to be found. 

He should have stopped him at the door, but he didn’t. 

Of course, this wasn’t the first time, so the damage had long since been done, with no chance to dial it back and rescue himself from stepping too far off the ledge. 

Regret was just much weaker than the powerful arms around him. 

“You’re not sorry at all,” he found his voice, keeping it low, just above a grunt—unable to raise it any higher without the threat of hearing his words break their pitch. He was having a fight for steady breath as it was and to lose his composure would be the death of him at face value. He could never allow it so easily, but it was slowly happening against his will. He was pressed beneath the bigger body, with his back flattened into the cool perfectly made bed beneath him. He hadn’t even made it into his bed, interrupted before he had the chance, by a knock at the door. 

He knew what was on the other side. And he let him in. Even if he knew he shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have let him in the first time. But when the door closed and those hands exposed him down to bare skin, and stripped his inhibitions off, he submitted to the mistake. He was lying in the bed he was making. Kakarot wasn’t sorry at all. But neither was he. This man wasn’t going to be around long enough for this to follow them. This was temporary. 

This wasn’t his Kakarot anyway.

“Yeah, maybe not,” thick and warm, his growl filled his head and drowned everything else out until he forgot to think about consequences again. 

“Dumb bastard,” he hissed at him, with so little venom in it, that it almost sounded like an endearment. It earned him the sharp sensation of teeth just shy of drawing blood—just enough to leave temporary impressions, that only he would see. He could feel the curved lips of his smirk and the immediate tongue that licked over the bruised spot, almost an apology, but one made in sarcasm. What a horrible person, honestly. 

The marks his left in Kakarot’s back were more than a sufficient punishment in return, but this man didn’t complain a bit about it. Not once. Not since the first accidental time, and not when he did so on purpose to remind him that he had perfect control of his facilities. Drawn into the...fantasy of it...perhaps? Yes, but still, perfectly aware of reality. Just placing it aside. Leaving it on the floor where their clothes were abandoned. 

The mass of the other body never felt that much more significant than his own before, but he’d never had his legs wrapped around his hips either. He’d never felt disadvantaged by his slighter build and still didn’t, but he was somewhat struck by the weight of him—the pressure of him, crushing him down and imprinting him into the mattress. His heels dug into the back of his thighs when they moved and he quickly found one of those large hands taking grip of one of his knees—fingers curled and nearly wrapped around the whole thickness of his calf once he had him where he wanted him. Had he always had hands this large?

Any thought like that vaporized as quickly as it entered his mind, when Kakarot turned his mouth down against his. Any snappy comments were suffocated in his throat and he allowed it. If he had objections, he could have bitten him—snarled and left blood on his lips, but he didn’t have it in him to object. His frustrations and impatience had caught up with him and left him too tired to turn it away. 

The very presence of this body against him, and the feverish sense of...passion he felt, nearly sunk him with remorse for the sheer nature of their unrequited interest in each other. Rather, not each other. This wasn’t his Kakarot. He wasn’t his Vegeta. This Kakarot, who fell into their world from a parallel future timeline, was not coming from a world like his own. His world wasn’t like theirs, his past wasn’t even remotely the same to what their present was; Vegeta knew better than to try and compare. But to see the same unreturned, distance between them in the future, in their years beyond his timeline—deep interests gone completely unnoticed...it felt desolate.

They were waiting to go back, the two who slipped over from a timeline by a mistaken wish. If their dragon had been available, then this would never have happened. They could have sent them back immediately. Vegeta would never have spoken to him in a measure long enough to lead to the lapse in judgment he was continuously making. But the lapse in judgment was far more of a desperate need to fill a void that he otherwise may never see an opportunity for again. Kakarot, his own, had never picked up his intentions. This one, didn’t need to read any subtleties. He all but placed him against the wall himself. 

How was he supposed to resist the opportunity he’d missed for so long, when he’d been starving for ages? They were clawing at each other’s image and using each other in the worst way; and his nails digging into his back and leaving fresh lines next to the fainter ones from a previous secretive excursion, proved that neither of them thought about the emotional backlash. Emotions weren’t part of the plan. Once this was over, they would never see each other again, and they would sweep it under and hopefully, they could finally be done with it. That was the plan, right?

Right?

He hoped that was the plan, because he was counting on that being the end of this. This older man, this parallel Kakarot was never going to be his and to try and substitute that was going to be a remarkable failure in coping with his obsession with his own oblivious version of the same man. How many years had been consumed by thoughts of this one stupid bastard?

His fingers curled in a mess of thick black hair at the passing thought of it, exhaling a heavy breath between what his mind was doing and the things this man was doing to his body. He pulled his hair and then sunk his fingers into his scalp with the sudden change in Kakarot’s rhythm. Kakarot noticed his body language—despite it being so subtle. Despite him barely breathing differently. For all he knew, Vegeta could have just been responding to the shifting of his hips and the occasional shudder of pleasure that hit him suddenly from how unevenly Kakarot would roll his body up against him. His larger stature made him so potentially overwhelming, but the power of him was everything he wanted.

Power was what he craved.

“You’re thinkin’ about me,” Kakarot breathed, tracing his tongue along the curl of his ear. Vegeta was prepared to snap back at him, only stopped by the groan that would escape him if he made any attempt to speak—instead he bared his teeth against his neck. 

This Kakarot could notice this from just his subtle touch and breath; he could feel it in the way he moved in response to him. He noticed without barely any observation but a natural feeling…one that his own couldn’t catch on to with his blatant attempt to have him take notice. He couldn’t just come right out and speak it to his damn face, because then it might never be something he could recover from if it went poorly. This one understood that, far too well. This one experienced the same unbridgeable gap from the other side. It was remarkably uncomfortable to witness and to feel, knowing they would walk out of the room with passive faces like they never took their secrets to whole new levels of depraved. 

“I hate you,” he muttered to him, but his tone wasn’t angry like it usually came off when he addressed Kakarot with his common levels of frustration. It was resigned. 

“I wish you hated me a little more,” the response came back, with a similar tone, and Vegeta lamented that he understood what that meant. He hated so much that he knew what that meant in Kakarot language. His Vegeta didn’t give him enough attention, that even feeling more hated would probably feel like at least something more. The concept of it was dismal. He would have to become significantly jaded to ever lose at least his feverishly intense want to hate Kakarot. 

“I’ll hate you plenty, so just shut up and make it count, clown,” he suddenly snarled at him, feeling pressure in his chest from the burst of emotion that hit him unexpectedly. He pulled his head back hard, by his hair, and nearly resigned to split his lip crushing his mouth down against his—uncaring about teeth. 

Kakarot just caught his breath in between and buried Vegeta under him, “as you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming so far out of left field from me after When In Rome RIGHT... I have no idea where I even am anymore. Please be gentle, good lord. This is the first part of a multiple part series. It is 7 chapters and an epilogue done and will be posted in relatively quick order as I edit my chapters. The challenge was writing them with a word count of 1777. So they are brief, but they're brief and intentionally compacted. There is no Slow Burn to be found here and try not to judge me TOO MUCH.


	2. Re

“So, are you and him….?” 

Those trailing words had struck him from an angle that tore right through any guard he may have even remotely considered holding. Crashing right through him and jolting an immediate response. The sudden snapping motion of his head turning to make eye contact with this man, could have broken his neck if he had been a weaker person. The syllables hit him with their implication in such a way, that he had almost barked an immediate defensive reflex—one that he could have thrown up at anything, for the sake of needing denial ready at his fingertips. He was ready to deny any allegations, but he needed to know what he meant, even if he already felt like he knew.

“Are we what—?” He tested, voice low, and daring him to actually say what he was thinking.

He wouldn’t directly say, it seemed, “my bad, I guess not. You just...appeared much more...comfortable. I had thought maybe...it was different here.”

In that that first awkward exchange of words, Vegeta knew he’d heard something almost foreign in this other, older, Kakarot. Something hard to explain that he could see without having to search for—and from a distance, at that. There was something tangible, hanging low, that he could almost reach out and drag it in with his fingers if he was daring enough to be so blatant about it. He didn’t, not initially. He had been taken too far back by his boldness, to even begin to process how to approach this when they were standing face to face, alone. 

Just getting there, to that point, had been a bag of mixed sensations to begin with. He had been forced to get his foot down between this one and his own Kakarot—who had been ready to fight him at a moment’s notice—just to get to the bottom of what the hell was going on. 

Any Kakarot, regardless of time or place, was a glutton for a fight and to ask questions after, seemed like the better answer—but Vegeta wasn’t in the mood. Neither he nor his apparent doppelgänger. His double, however, was less willing to jump in between them, looking—more or less—tired enough of the nonsense and content to let him be the one to scream at them to stop. 

He had the energy to do so, so he did. The evidence was present that his Kakarot was much more of a handful and he was still more than willing to exert the energy to trifle with his abundance of ridiculousness. The fighting mood was killed, and done flawlessly by Vegeta. Killing moods was his hobby and he was very skilled in his craft.

The first words among them were his and he carried the conversation in, dragging out the explanation on where these two had just appeared from. Why suddenly there were two forms of them, that felt so real, appearing before them out of nowhere. They weren’t threats, once he took in the way this Kakarot submitted to his demand. Not that Kakarot really listened to him, but if he was going to listen to anyone, Vegeta liked to think he was one person he would consider listening to. Time period be damned.

But something about the way this one behaved when he addressed him, made him feel like it was different from the moment he first spoke. Something had connected and his attention was unusually drawn toward the Kakarot he’d discovered to come from a timeline separated from theirs; ten years ahead of them. Maybe it had something to do with the small fact that every time he looked up toward him, he found direct eye contact was the result; as if he was being watched. 

It was perplexing and made it difficult to focus his brain power in trying to come up with a plan to fix their problem and send them home. They fell through by an error made with dragon balls, but the problem was in wondering if such an error could be fixed with a different set or if it was something they would need to find a different solution for. Bulma would have suggestions and that’s where they brought them. But the reason he took them to her, really, was simply because he wasn’t able to shake his lack of focus. He could pass the thinking parts off without effort. 

For the wrong reasons, he couldn’t keep his priorities straight. 

He hadn’t wanted to end up alone with him. But somehow he had. In a conversation that was placing a sinking sensation in his chest that he couldn’t alleviate without fleeing. But he wouldn’t run away from any Kakarot, regardless of when and where he came from. Or how much distress they put him in. 

“Just what are you trying to get at?” He tested, feeling the conversation should stop, but the morbid curiosity was enough to push him. Who cared what they said to each other, since these two would leave and anything said between them would be long forgotten as words of a stranger. 

“I’m...just...puttin’ my foot in my mouth,” this Kakarot smiled; the lines of his face a little less youthful than his younger self, but his grin still just as earnest. There was something about the way he kept eye contact with Vegeta, that made him feel like he was missing something, however. 

“By now, you’d think you’d run out of room in that mouth, and feet.” Vegeta snapped back, an instinct to recoil with some kind of back talk—as if everything was meant to be a competition between them, even to the point of witty banter. 

Somehow, the response was different than he expected. He didn’t expect laughter. But laughter was what he got out of this older man. Kakarot rubbed the back of his neck and let his chuckles die down, once the initial burst was out of the way and done with. “Sorry, it’s just...been a while. Since I’ve gotten to hear that sort of cattiness out of you. Or, him. Or whatever, I guess. It’s, not really the same, but it’s close enough. It was close enough to get to me a bit.”

Vegeta frowned. “Am I not like that in your time period?”

“...We’re not very close anymore in our time period. Well, not like you...are, or I guess you seem like. Maybe that’s why I thought….” he shook his head and then smiled, converting his abrupt thought into something else and diverting the subject out of what he must have deemed as unsafe territory. “It’s just, different. Is all.”

“...it’s not what you think,” he found himself looking anywhere else. The weight of his gaze was heavier than he wanted to feel directly. There was something gravitational about him that drew Vegeta in and a conversation that should have been cut short and killed, was left to struggle along, pulling him closer to something he could feel there beneath the surface of his superficial smiles. He asked the question, not out of curiosity, but out of...

“I know...I didn’t mean to offend you, I was just...I dunno. Wonderin’.” 

Hope? 

“No, you didn’t stumble on the universe where I got your dumb ass to notice me, if that’s what you’re asking,” he shrugged, finding words falling from his mouth like a disease, spreading faster than he could contain. None of them should have left the deepest corner of his stupid brain, but for some reason, they tumbled out without remorse. 

The only true regret was the way he felt once he spoke the words out loud and admitted them to another person. Ages of yearning for something and getting no return left a curl of disappointment in his gut strong enough to make him feel winded in that moment. He took a deep breath, feeling defeated. 

“...That’s...really different, I guess, from my world, I mean. I thought it might just be a time thing, but I guess...other stuff is different too.” 

That made him look up. He didn’t quite understand the meaning and expected him to say more, but Kakarot didn’t offer more—which was irritating, as Kakarot was known to run his mouth more, not less. “In what way?” 

He hesitated, not making eye contact with him anymore. Something about that irked him immeasurably. Kakarot wasn’t that dodgy, but this one was being dodgy in a subtle way that he didn’t like; because it was a defensive way that he felt a little too familiar with. Like he really didn’t want to say, but he’d opened the door and now he needed to step through it. 

“I guess it’s just...opposite, is all.” 

Brain wires took a lot longer to connect than he expected, in order to understand the implication and he stared at him, despite not having the courtesy of his direct attention. Opposite? In the way that Kakarot was the one feeling in his current position? That was...absurd. But then, they’d hardly be exchanging words otherwise...But, in what goddamn universe was he not hopelessly chasing on the heels of this overpowered buffoon relentlessly? 

This Kakarot’s apparently. 

“Honestly, Kakarot, you could do better anyway.” 

His dismissive scoff was turned back on him by the most surprisingly intense gaze he’d ever seen from Kakarot’s face in all the years he’d known him. “I didn’t want to do better, I wanted to do that.” 

Instantly, he wanted him to go back to not making eye contact. The eye contact he was making was putting a strain on Vegeta’s struggling heart rate suddenly. To say something like that so seriously—what a fucking idiot—he really wasn’t that much different, despite what he said. Still saying anything that came to his damn mind without a filter. 

But to hear it out of his mouth…

He had to look away from him and throw his face back up before he let himself get knocked out by the mirage. “You’re ridiculous…” He exhaled. 

Kakarot smiled, actually having the nerve to chuckle at him and his reddening face, “sorry...Just wanted to see how you’d react.” 

“You—” He did that on purpose—. He folded his arms and turned away from him, abruptly. “Y...You know what, why don’t you just fuck off with the rest of them. The woman has food being made—Go—” He suddenly unfolded his arm and pointed, and refused to look at him again. 

“Alright, alright,” he laughed, but obeyed and Vegeta watched him walk away, feeling so conflicted. 

Why the hell aren’t you like that here, with me. You’re the same person. 

It felt like a bloodied knife walking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full dedication to my wife for this fic. Because she’s the reason it’s going as far as it is. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.


	3. Mi

The knock on his door came as a surprise. No one bothered him at night, not when he was already locked away and decidedly done with being social. Infrequently, he didn’t share a room with Bulma, but she was not going to be joining him for bed due to her late night projects; so he took his own room. It was the room that was originally his when he was invited to stay. It was still his and he still maintained it. Bulma had her own room that wasn’t shared with him as well. They were perfectly adjusted people for needing their space and he appreciated that. 

Unfortunately, it created a circumstance where he had no one to protect him when he opened the door to a weakness that he didn’t have the strength to battle. Not that he needed to be saved, he could defend himself, he swore to himself. There was nothing on the other side of his door that he needed anyone else to shield him from, but he would have appreciated the easy way out if Bulma had been there. 

If she’d been there, he’d have never had a reason to answer.

Of course, if she’d been there, there likely would have never been a knock in the first place. 

Opening the door and looking up at him, made him feel weak much more quickly than he anticipated. Two days since they’d arrived and he’d tried to maintain distance from either of them, but the gravity was hard to ignore. He wasn’t alone, it seemed, otherwise he wouldn’t be looking up at the restless face of an aged man who wouldn’t stop haunting his obsessive nature. 

“Kakarot,” he addressed him, finding himself stopping there. He should have said something else. Anything else. Asked him what he wanted. Asked him if he needed something, so he could be directed elsewhere. But he paused there, and never picked up any words to follow them—waiting for him to bring forth his reason for coming to his door. A door he was never shown to, but somehow knew. 

“Can I come in?” 

No. You can’t. 

And yet, he swung the door wider and turned back into the room. Letting this man into the room was a trap that he was walking himself into—and he felt it—before he even knew what the trap was. Something in his bones just felt it. The sound of the door clicking behind him felt like a prison door being slammed and he knew better than to commit the crimes he was being incarcerated for. Wanting something so badly, he was letting the desire walk through the open gate. 

He didn’t turn back to face him. He didn’t have to see him to feel him approaching. He didn’t have to have his eyes open to see the shadow he cast across him, when he closed the distance between them. He offered nothing at all for a fight, even feeling hands on his damn body. Fingers pressed into his sides, snaking around until he could feel them crawling up his chest and up his neck. Stopping him was the correct answer. Turning around and socking him back into his own universe could solve all the problems. But he failed to act on what he knew was the correct response. 

“Just tell me no, and it’ll be like I never walked through the door,” the words came whispered into his ear, quiet, but somehow so loud he questioned how it could crumble all his thoughts so easily. 

Tell him no. It’s one word, and it would solve all of the problems. Send him away and then ignore him. Let them go back and never think about it ever again. Don’t indulge it. It’s not the real thing. Not your reality, it’s someone else’s. He’s not even from the same time frame. Turn him away—

But instead, he tilted his head and let him have access to his neck. Weak. So damn weak. Both of them were weak, he knew it. He wasn’t alone. If Kakarot was any stronger than he was, then he wouldn’t have come into his room. It took a weak man to let him in, but it took a weak one to come to the door in the first place. To take the chance that he was also as weak willed—a very well made bet, as it turned out—took a lot of gall. 

Once they were gone, all that would be left of this, would be the echoes of sensation. Memories he’d have to live with to fill in the fucking void he’d never get rid of anyway. 

He turned around in his grasp, pulling away from him only enough to crane his neck and catch his eyes—a long, silent moment where neither of them moved or spoke, but remained locked. That was a battle to see who was brave enough to break it, but Vegeta tipped the scale and won the first round. 

“You’re as stupid as you ever were, Kakarot,” he spoke low, barely tipping above a whisper. It sounded much thinner than he’d intended it to, but he didn’t back down from it. 

“If I was any different, you’d be disappointed, yeah?” He countered. His face was etched with something Vegeta had never seen before and it tore down the last shred of resistance he thought he might have attempted to hold on to. If he was making a mistake, his expression didn’t carry the hint of doubt with him. Kakarot always did things without really considering the aftermath like he did, however. But, it always worked out for him. 

Vegeta just wasn’t the same way. He wouldn’t function the same way, but that didn’t stop him. It should have. That should have been everything required to put this to death and leave it to hang as a warning for all to see. 

“This is a mistake, and even you know it,” he mumbled against a mouth that he shouldn’t have against his. But there it was; he let him turn his head back and kiss him. Why it couldn’t have been that simple with his own Kakarot… He had done all but thrown himself directly at him, and yet this older one came directly to him, so effortlessly. Walked through the damn door and took down barriers without any efforts. Like a fucking punch to the chest, only it felt so much worse. 

He balled up his fist, trembling a little bit. A mixture of anguish and desire left him feeling like suffering was a requirement in every facet of his life and this phantom standing in front of him was just another ticket of proof. He was just another piece placed in front of him to tease him with things he couldn’t actually have, in one way or another. 

“He won’t see me, but you will, what fucking horse shit am I being presented with right now,” he snarled at him, before he could hear anything else out of him. 

But Kakarot just snarled back, and pushed him, taking him to the edge of the bed and shoving him against the edge until his knees buckled. He was prepared to fight, but the fist he swung went slack the moment Kakarot caught his wrist. There was no real resistance at all, it was a farce. He was putting it on for himself and nothing else. A personal bravado to convince himself he wasn’t going to eat himself alive for being a weaker man than he liked to think he was—and not physically, either. Being under Kakarot wasn’t what made him feel weak. 

Being unable to stop himself from wanting to be there, under this one, was what made him feel weak. 

“Don’t ask me, I’m not good at that stuff...I know it’s not right. But it’s not gonna matter, right? What we do here, ain’t goin’ back with either of us. They’re not gonna know.” He presented his case in the simple way a child would, but unusually secretive for Kakarot. This man was Kakarot, undeniably. He acted with little planning for the distant future and the catastrophe he might deal with later wasn’t even a consideration. He hadn’t even considered a possible catastrophe at all. He knew what he wanted and he went for it; and he knew he could see the same thing in Vegeta. 

“You know better. Nothing is ever fucking simple with you other than your mentality,” Vegeta hissed, threading his fingers up through Kakarot’s hair and pulling, drawing his face back toward his, losing the war despite his best efforts. “Give me a reason to be done with you,” he bit his lip, drawing his fingers over his neck, letting go of his hair. “I’m tired of chasing.” 

“Likewise.” 

The bed dipped under the weight of his body, and the last chance to stop him flew away and Vegeta made no attempt to try and catch it. There was nothing gentle about him and that was perfectly fine. Gentle wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted bruises, and teeth. He wanted to suffer a little for his efforts to let this walk through his door. Mistakes are supposed to teach a lesson. What lesson was he going to get out of this one? 

He wasn’t sure yet, but when it caught up he was absolutely certain it was going to destroy him far more than the handprints being left in his skin. 

Those marks would be covered, hidden from anyone else. But would he be able to separate himself from it after the fact. And not think about it when they were back in common company and he was standing next to the Kakarot that was supposed to be his own? The one he couldn’t make do this? The one he would have to look at and think about the fact that another version of him had been in his bed? Fulfilling a fantasy he shouldn’t have in the first place?

But he wasn’t the only one. The man’s whose back he left deep trails in, had no sign of remorse in grasping the opportunity to have what he otherwise couldn’t. He was calmer on the surface, but he was feeling the same turmoil, Vegeta suspected. Kakarot just had a very different way of experiencing his feelings than he did. But it was the same. 

A terrible, terrible way of trying to cope, and say, “please let this be enough to be done with you, because I can’t deal with what you aren’t anymore.” 

Unfortunately, Vegeta felt like the answer wasn’t that simple. The bed didn’t feel as warm as he was hoping it would be afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to update this yesterday and promptly blacked out, whoops. I’m on chapter four of this thing’s sequel if you’re wondering about it’s status. It’s got a lot of ground. I hope you enjoy the train wreck.


	4. Fa

After four pages of scanning text, he knew he hadn’t actually absorbed any of what he was attempting to read. The book snapped closed between his fingers and he turned his head back, closing his eyes. Reading was far too difficult when he had too much rolling through his head and choking out the real thoughts going through his mind. How could he attempt to follow a drama on printed pages when the drama of his actual life was far more straining? Though, really less drama, and more just repeated acts of stupidity that he didn’t stop committing over and over. 

From the first moment he spoke, he started chipping away his willpower. And with significant effort, hating Kakarot was becoming the only thing he could focus on to keep him grounded through his near constant blunders. Through extreme contradiction, of course. What else could he call it, when he was leaving his fingerprints in his body, and then telling him he hated everything he represented? He did hate everything he represented.

You are everything I don’t have. And when you leave. I’ll continue to not have it. 

And yet, he still had the remnants of his teeth in his skin—of where his mouth left trails, night after night. How many damn nights? How many times had they had that battle? How many times had he had to fight with opening the door? Was it even a battle if he never even hesitated at all? It was a surrender. 

He was hiding that night, closed up in the room with Bulma. She was thumbing through her own texts on the bed and he was pretending he was otherwise occupied by his own thing. He was, just not the book in his hand. It could have been upside down and he might not have noticed. The only salvation was that the silence was broken by the sound of the rain against the window glass, and occasional thunder growling somewhere off in the distance. Everything else was just the thoughts in his head that wouldn’t leave him be. 

If I was as simple minded as Kakarot, then this wouldn’t be a problem at all. 

But instead, he continued to linger on it, until he found himself begging for them to accidentally fall into a portal that would send them home and out of their world forever. That wasn’t going to happen, unfortunately, and he had to maintain some level of civility.

Well, he didn’t actually have to do anything he didn’t want to do; but the more out of order he acted, the more obvious it would be that something wasn’t quite right. He already suspected that his own counterpart didn’t particularly care for him. Leave it to him to dislike himself, despite very little interaction with him. He was certain it had something to do with his ease of interaction with the older Kakarot. He didn’t seem to appreciate the way they behaved less antagonistically than they were expected to toward one another. 

Yeah, you really wouldn’t appreciate my interactions with him if you had even the slightest idea of what happens when we’re not being watched. Or if you knew half of the shit he wants to do to you. 

He exhaled, a little more deeply than he intended, but he turned his face toward the window and played it off as being tired. He was tired, but only tired of thinking. Shutting that off was not really an option, however. Overthinking was his strong suit and it was causing him more grief than anything else. Every day was a new fresh dose of toeing the line. He wouldn’t slip on that slope again, he’d swear. Only to crash immediately. But once they left, the feeling would leave. 

Right? 

That was why it was so easy to hate him, right? Because hate is exactly what it was, right? Clearly he had his emotions in check, in the same way he still had the conscious presence of mind to tell him not to leave marks in his skin. As evidenced by the reflection of a dark bruise, peeking from under his collar, staring back at him in the dim reflection of the window glass. He still had control, he argued. That was just an excuse of being caught up in the physical aspect of it. It had nothing to do with getting lost in the mess they were making. Crawling away from it would be easy. He couldn’t miss him if he hated him, and god, did he hate him. 

He didn’t have him to miss, anyway. Another thing to hate about it. There was no pleasant aspect in all of this, except the physical gratification. His consolation prize was having the knowledge and none of the joy of it being anything real. This wasn’t tangible. 

And yet, he was on the edge of it. Slipping. And he knew it. Damn it, he knew it. 

“Vegeta,” a voice broke his thoughts so sharply that he jumped, blinking and glancing around like he’d been struck. It was Bulma. She was hovering over him, leaning close to him. He hadn’t even heard her get up or stop thumbing through her papers. He had been stuck somewhere in his head and probably didn’t hear her calling to him, before she decided to come closer to him. He had to shake himself and pretend he wasn’t alarmed by the sudden approach. But Bulma wasn’t stupid and he knew better than to dismiss her powers of observation. 

“I didn’t hear you. Did you say something?” He admitted, sitting straighter once he caught that she was moving to sit across his lap—looping her arms around his neck. It wasn’t uncommon for her to do these things, but for some reason, it felt strange. He felt called out and he knew why, but he said nothing. He didn’t have to. She said plenty enough for him. 

“Whatever is happening, Vegeta, you need to be careful that it doesn’t come back to bite you,” she said softly, pressing her fingers against the side of his face and turning his head to face her. Her red-painted nails trailed along his cheek and down his neck, until they stopped to the spot where Kakarot left evidence of his presence in his skin. She was aware of it and poked her finger directly over it, holding it there to emphasize her point. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He defaulted to denial out of instinct. It was a weak effort at best, even to himself. Bulma wouldn’t buy it, even on her drunkest of days. And of course, she was sharper than a tack on that one. 

“Vegeta, I’ve known for ages. I’ve been fighting with being in Goku’s shadow forever. I’m just really lucky that I have amazing tits.” Her tactic of redirection worked, unfortunately, and he cast his eyes right down the front of her shirt. Vulgar woman. Not incorrect, however. She seemed to be pleased with his response, enough to turn from her unsavory commentary, back to what she seemed to be edging toward. “This other Goku…”

“Is nothing,” he answered her quickly, before she could continue. “He’s going back home as soon as we can make them and that’s the end of them. He’s just...less irritating than mine—ours. Our Kakarot is an idiot.” He almost chipped his teeth through his tongue in his snarl at himself. He didn’t want to speak any of it out loud. Once the words hit the air, he knew it would start to actually collapse on him. 

I’m not actually playing around as much as I want to say I am. 

“Listen...I’m not about to tell you I wouldn’t be upset if you up and ran off with Goku, because honestly. Not even a word here? The least you could do is tell me about it. Let me watch a little, you know,” she shook her head a bit, trying to make lighter of it than she knew it was. Vegeta was never good being cornered and she knew it. He knew what she was doing. But it didn’t stop him from hissing at her a little—over the sudden color in his face. “But this...Goku isn’t going to end well for you...That’s all.” 

“It’s nothing. I already told you. He’s nothing, and there’s nothing there.” He rubbed his face to try and lessen the color after Bulma’s shameless trouncing of his dignity. 

“There’s always something, when you’re holding someone that often, Vegeta. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but there’s something. And I just...don’t want you to suffer because of it. It was hard enough watching you climb out of the pit he left you in once. I don’t want you to end up in that, only for our Goku to not understand why you’re suddenly kicking him out as a friend.” 

“I never wanted him as my friend to begin with.” 

“You can’t have it either way you want it. And you know that.” 

He went silent for a moment, knowing she was right, but being unwilling to tell her that. She didn’t need him to confirm it. She wouldn’t be speaking to him, if she didn’t already know she was speaking in fact. If he was smart, he would take these words of warning of hers, and heed them. Grasp them, reign in his stupid behavior and stop stringing himself up for failure. But he was already working the other end of the noose and he knew it full blown. 

“I’ll figure it out. By the time they’re gone, all of this will be behind me.” 

“I want to believe you. I really do,” she took his face between her hands, looking at him as if she had a fear for him that he knew he should have for himself. 

“Then believe me,” he finalized the conversation, wrapping his arms around her, but turning his face away from her. He couldn’t look at her directly. She was far more accepting than he deserved her to be. But she offered him a moment from his thoughts, where he could try and reformulate his argument and remind himself of everything it was and wasn’t. 

He was plenty capable of turning away from it. This older Kakarot wasn’t anything more than an illusion of what he might have thought he wanted. Once gone, that was it. He knew that perfectly well, they discussed this. They knew this. Kakarot knew this. He just needed to reaffirm this and not let it carry him away. Nothing was going to change after they left. 

I just need to convince myself I’m not falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I post this chapter to you from Sequoia in California! I am on vacay at the moment, so this may be the last chapter of this until I get back to Florida if I can’t find time to edit another one. I might, I’ll have to see. This one didn’t have much to fix. Hope you enjoy!


	5. So

“What’s got you so excited—,” Vegeta grunted, back hitting the wall as soon as the door closed. Kakarot’s large hands nearly wrapped all the way around his sides, digging into his ribs. He’d gotten used to the way he’d slide his fingers around his back and tighten his grip on him with his thumbs. Was that an intentionally possessive act? Or was Kakarot really just that much of a buffoon, that he didn’t realize just how aggressively dominating he could be? Vegeta never let him have it easily, but he certainly didn’t offer up the fight he probably should have. Playing hard to get was stupid, when he wanted it. 

And when he had his legs wrapping around Kakarot’s hips, it was very much apparent that he wanted it. 

“Watching you get into it with yourself was enough to get anyone worked up,” Kakarot had turned his face into his neck and was already threatening to leave evidence behind with his teeth. Animal.

“Honestly, you’re this fucking wound up because of what was, essentially, a pissing match with myself—you’re a freak, Kakarot,” he hissed, slightly soured by the implication of just what made him react so strongly. He tried to dial it back as quickly as he felt it, because that was a dangerous path to walk down. Kakarot’s attractions ultimately had nothing to do with him and he didn’t need to ask questions. Shouldn’t have asked the question in the first place. 

But he did, and he knew why he did. 

“Bet Bulma would have some things to say, too,” Kakarot huffed directly into his ear, in a way that made him have to exhale, angrily. Angrily, because the shiver it sent across his neck and chest was completely out of his control. He found himself turning his head back a little, leaving his throat completely defenseless again—just like the last time he’d fallen for Kakarot’s stupid fucking ear trick. And he just kept right on breathing words against his skin, like he didn’t have any idea what he’d done, “too bad he doesn’t like to have any fun at all.”

“Right, watching me get my ass handed to me by myself would be fun, wouldn’t it.” The sour feeling returned, but this time for a completely different reason. He was feeling conflicted between Kakarot’s aggressively physical stimulation and his own mental mood killing thoughts. His older counterpart had gotten into a minor altercation with him and through Kakarot’s natural cheekiness—and ability to make light of things—it ended up being the briefest physical confrontation he’d ever had. One that was brief, but enough to make him recognize he was grossly outclassed by himself. As he should be, there was a ten year gap between them. 

Still, the underlying disdain he felt from the older version of himself in that short interaction was enough to make him feel extremely insulted by Kakarot’s sheer interest or amusement at the whole scenario. 

“You weren’t that far behind him, you know,” Kakarot said, as if Vegeta was supposed to believe that, after experiencing a punch to the face that felt like being hit by a comet. He had seen it coming and still didn’t have the time to move away from it. But Kakarot’s confidence was usually unshakeable and he seemed to be unwilling to let him get a word in between his, covering his mouth with his own. 

This idiot didn’t kiss him directly as often as he put his mouth on the rest of his damn body. This was a Kakarot tactic that he’d learned from the weeks of this—from night after night of meeting this man behind the backs of their counterparts. Kakarot was manipulative, and he was not as stupid as he let on. He silenced him so quickly, and knew exactly how to; but used this manipulative power so rarely, that it’s effectiveness was maximized when he finally did dust it off to weaponize it. 

It was almost as if Kakarot couldn’t stand seeing Vegeta constantly beating himself up. Which was really quite funny, given how excited he was about watching them fight each other. 

“Make up your mind, Kakarot,” he mumbled against his lips, squirming against the weight of his body crushing him against the wall. “Do you want me to kick my own ass or not, you can’t have both—.” 

Kakarot had the nerve to grin at him. Look him directly in the fucking face and grin. The expression was so much less innocent than anyone would believe could be reflected on this face. Kakarot, at least this one, was hardly a saint, and they had no damn clue and he wasn’t going to be the one to tell them he was a damn animal. Pure of heart, maybe, but so were wild beasts. This man was just shy of being worthy of being let loose in the woods forever and never retrieved. 

“The words that come out of your mouth can decide your life, Kakarot—,” he warned him sharply.

“All I’m saying...” Kakarot started slowly, pretending to think, but Vegeta knew that was a farce. No Kakarot he ever knew did much of that. It was just a precursor to him pulling Vegeta away from the wall, to sink him into the bed instead—climbing over him, and trapping him under his larger body. “...is I hate it when you get all mean with yourself in that way you usually do. But I’d be absolutely down with watching you get physical with yourself, y’know—.”

Vegeta shoved his hand directly into his face and tried not to acknowledge the creeping warmth through his chest and neck. How dare this fucking dunce utter these words out loud where he’d have to hear them. Kakarot absolutely said things on purpose to get a rise out of him and he was still unable to dodge all of his power moves successfully. They were living their foolish fantasies already, Kakarot didn’t have to curb anything he said and it was clear as day when he’d say these things to him like this. 

He didn’t stand any more of a chance when Kakarot retaliated against his hand-block, by drawing several of his fingers into his mouth. Right down to the knuckles, and looking him dead in the eyes while doing it. He was incredibly tempted to curl his fingers and choke him to death, but he was traumatized far too much to actually act on the impulse. Kakarot knew it. Kakarot was much smarter, and much more mischievous than he let on. He absolutely knew what he was doing when he acted sloppy and noisy, making absolutely sure Vegeta could feel that his damn tongue could reach the edge of his palm. 

Vegeta was easily reactionary and he bent a knee, placing a foot against his chest to force him back—trying so hard to evict the image of Kakarot licking his lips and wiping the saliva from his chin. What an uncouth animal.

“You’re absolutely not earning any points with me, Kakarot—,” he sharply hissed at him, keeping him away with the strength of his leg. Kakarot leaned just a bit over him, not bothering to hold himself up, letting Vegeta do it for him. And Vegeta could feel it. If he let go, Kakarot would just fucking flop over on him and that was such a Kakarot move. Cheeky and wildly brave, given Vegeta’s attitude. 

“I’m never gonna earn any points with you anyway. So I’ll spend in the negative until a man in a suit comes and kicks me out,” he grinned, letting his arm hang so that he could draw his thumb down the side of Vegeta’s face. 

The action nearly made Vegeta’s knee cave and drop him. His reaction to Kakarot was always strong, one way or another; but he was much more comfortable when it was due to violent outbursts. Don’t be gentle with me, asshole. 

“I’m going to kick you out, if you keep spewing such trash out of your mouth,” he scowled, emphasizing his point by taking Kakarot’s jaw between his thumb and fingers. “Honestly. You started the whole thing to begin with, you should have been the one to end it, not me. I should kick you out and let you whine at my door like a pathetic dog.”

“Are we talking about this thing here or the thing from earlier?”

Vegeta ground his teeth and tightened his grip on the fool’s face. He meant the damn thing from earlier. Kakarot had been the instigator. He got him into a fight with himself over a stupid comment. It was always Kakarot. He was the one who liked to push just enough to cause him grief. Whether it be this Kakarot or the Kakarot was supposed to coexist with. This one liked to needle him so much more warmly, however. He just got right up in there and had all the fun he could. 

Vegeta hated it.

Because it wasn’t going to be the same once it was gone.

His fingers nearly left marks in Kakarot’s cheeks and he brought him down, his knee drawn back to his chest so he could lower the dunce without actually just dropping him on to him. He brought his face just shy of his and gave him such a severe look—threatening in the way he always did. “You make me regret opening my door each and every day. I deserve some compensation for this.”

Kakarot found himself supporting his own body again, suddenly interested in the tone of Vegeta’s voice. “Oh, and what kind are you looking for?”

Vegeta thought for a moment. Or pretended to think. He wasn’t really that serious, he was distracting the topic away from anything that would require deeper thought. He was removing himself from it. “Show me that Super Saiyan Four form of yours,” he finalized, and for some reason, found himself far more pleased with himself than he should be.

Especially when Kakarot looked down at him in a way that promised to mess him up in one fashion or another. 

“You want me even bigger and stronger?” Kakarot questioned, scooping him up to draw him into his lap. Yes. Yes he did. Have the decency to be powerful if you’re going to be bold enough to hold Prince Vegeta you common piece of shit. 

He looped an arm around him, eyes bleeding into green while he glanced over his shoulder absently, before he could get entirely comfortable, “Kakarot, you left the door cracked, you fucking dunce, close it. And then show me a good time.”

“Always bitchin’ about something...alright, get ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love cheeky Goku. That’s really all I have to say today.
> 
> Hope you’re enjoying!


	6. La

“Kakarot, what’s the meaning of this?”

His voice asked the accusing question, but the words didn’t come from his own mouth. The syllables had a threatening edge that were directed at the man next to him, and he felt the shift of eyes from Kakarot to him. Something about being on the receiving end of his own suspicious glare, left him defensive—feeling unusually vulnerable in a way he didn’t particularly like. He wasn’t even the one being addressed, but it seemed like his older counterpart had taken to targeting him for the brunt of his ire. 

Kakarot didn’t answer him. Words weren’t Kakarot’s strong point, and any ones that he could come up with at that particular moment weren’t going to end well for him. Vegeta knew that, and he suspected that his older counterpart knew that just the same. He didn’t demand words from him twice, but he did progressively become more and more infuriated when he received no response. That was a response that Vegeta was completely unsurprised by. That was his response, after all, and he knew that was a dangerous precursor to confrontation. 

“Since you didn’t say which one, Vegeta, I can answer,” another voice entered the room, coming up behind the looming figure in the doorway. His Kakarot. Rather, the Kakarot he shared a timeline with. The one he couldn’t have. 

The one he hadn’t realized had been the culprit of the open door from the previous night, until it was too late. 

“You brought him in on this—,” he spat at him, finding his voice, shakier than he thought would come out, and distressed by it. 

“Why not? It’s only fair he should know what you two have been doin’ when you disappear. Messin’ around when no one’s looking—,” Kakarot shot a look between both of them, unusually severe in expression and Vegeta found himself...angry about it. How dare he act offended by it. If any fucking person should be offended, it should be him. 

“It’s honestly no one’s business but ours, Kakarot. Fuck off.”

“Oh? It isn’t?” Any other further words out of him stopped, when his counterpart spoke; and neither form of Kakarot was willing to raise a word to the sound of his voice. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the sound of his own voice was uncomfortably venomous when it wasn’t coming from his own throat. He was beginning to understand the reason people didn’t enjoy speaking to him much when his attitude was particularly sour. “I think it’s plenty of my fucking business right now.” 

“Tch.” His better judgment called for him to just shut his mouth and not antagonize himself, knowing exactly how he’d react; but he couldn’t retract his instinct to snap back at him with a snarl. Being caught had placed him in a defensive position, where he was prickly and willing to attempt to get in his face, when he knew he was outclassed. His dismissive scoff was the wrong choice, and he knew it the moment he acted it, finding the likeliness of a fight growing by the passing seconds. But stepping back was not what Vegeta ever did. “Nothing your Kakarot does has anything to do with you. If you were so fucking concerned, then you might have actually fucking noticed before now.” 

The small room suddenly seemed a lot smaller than it did before, when he ended up smacked into the far wall of it—staring face to face with the blur that threw him across it. The scorn of his own gaze put a pressure on him that was more significant than the hand abruptly wrapped around his throat. He almost hadn’t noticed the suffocating grip for the sheer, raw forcefulness of being driven back into a corner. The strength of his saiyan power was significant, but ten years of experience placed a gap that made it difficult to overcome on a short burst and his immediate reaction was to snarl and prepare to at least make it difficult. 

Plaster cracked in the wall behind him when his counterpart tightened his grip and lifted him up by his jaw, shoving him back without mercy. “If you think I won’t destroy you, you can think again, you’re the first person I’d come after, you embarrassment,” he sneered at him lowly. And Vegeta felt the self loathing in his words and wanted to spit at him, but really lacked the ability to when he was being choked to such a degree. His older counterpart was quicker and he didn’t have the chance to react, but he had no less attitude in him—if anything, he suspected he had even more, since he was willing to keep running his mouth despite his position. 

“If you’re mad—because I let him play around a bit—with your face, then piss off—nothing will change when you go back,” he grunted, teeth grinding from his jaws being mashed together. “You don’t have to worry about it. He can get what he wanted out of me.” 

“Vegeta, stop—” He heard Kakarot almost immediately after his own words left his mouth. He didn’t even see the fist that almost hit him until he realized the older Kakarot had moved between them and blocked the assault from his older self. The swing of his fist would have likely knocked him clean through the wall and Kakarot knew that enough to intervene. He knew that enough to come to his defense, because he was also of the guilty party. “Stop—This isn’t...the way to...talk about this…” 

“No. It isn’t,” he agreed, but Vegeta knew the tone of that agreement and he knew it wasn’t the kind of agreement that really meant he agreed. It was the scorned sort of agreement. It was the tone that came with underlying need to turn it back around and cause more harm than necessary. “But talking isn’t really something you ever wanted to do, Kakarot,” he snapped at him and Vegeta could visibly see the wince on the older Kakarot’s face. 

“...C...Come again?” 

He backed down, finally, turning away from Vegeta and heading back toward the door of the room. He ignored Kakarot entirely, only barely acknowledging the younger Kakarot in passing—as if offering his thanks for his information. “I’m fucking done here, talk all you want. I respect your Bulma enough not to leave her a widow,” he idly threatened, casting off the rest of the confrontation once it was apparent that Kakarot was going to defend the younger of the two. He was smart enough to fold when it was no longer in his favor to continue. Evidently, that difference was significant between the two of them. The younger of them hadn’t yet decided when to stop fighting losing fights. This one had already determined the fight was a loss with Kakarot in the mix.

Or maybe he’d already realized there were no benefits in continuing. 

Vegeta fought regardless of benefit, but his older self had a jadedness to him that didn’t do that as much anymore. 

And that’s why Kakarot took such a shine to him. Maybe if he wasn’t such an unlikeable old asshole with that lack of fire in him, Kakarot wouldn’t have even approached at all. 

But he did the first smart thing in the whole exchange, and he kept that thought to himself. And the only reason he even did that much, largely had to do with the sudden understanding that his older self’s anger was directed at him for his coziness with Kakarot. The level of anger was extremely disproportionate to the impression he’d been given, unless Kakarot had been mistaken all along. Or his older self hadn’t understood the impressions Kakarot had given him, and then had given up after so long. They drifted apart because neither of them could communicate, because they didn’t speak the same language most of the time. 

Kakarot was goofy, oblivious dunce, and Vegeta was socially dead from the neck up. 

But if that was the case, then why didn’t he say anything? 

Why would he...Why would he do anything that would make emotional sense and offer him mental stability. The other Vegeta left the room before another word could be said and he didn’t even attempt to voice it—only proving it further. He exhaled and rubbed his neck, feeling like the weight hadn’t come off him, despite the force of being taken away. How could he fix what they weren’t supposed to even be aware of…? 

He was then reminded of his Kakarot. And a further weight came down and stomped his ribcage in. The hesitance to look up at him was so lengthy that it must have been painful to watch—even from someone as dense as Kakarot. Thick as he could be, he must not have been too slow if he had been able to parse out what had been going on enough to actually spy on them—actually bringing the other Vegeta with him to out them as blatantly as he had, after he’d found them. 

His anger wasn’t as punishing as his counterpart’s, but it was present in its delivery. It was there in the form of dragging them out and letting them hang. It did not seem like a Kakarot behavior and Vegeta couldn’t understand why, until he met eyes with him, following the departure of the angry future version of himself. 

Angry was obvious, but Kakarot wore all of his feelings like signs as big and orange as his dumb outfits. He was hurt. And for a nameless reason, Vegeta felt uncomfortable about the kicked puppy look on his stupid face, hiding underneath the edge of anger, directed at the older Kakarot. At least Vegeta wasn’t the only one mad at himself. 

“...Let’s...talk about this later, Vegeta?” He actually asked, and Vegeta found himself alarmed by the strange maturity being shown in the absence of it from the older pair.

He nodded numbly in response. “Alright.” 

He had nothing else to say and didn’t stay any longer. He left, closing the door behind him, and leaving the two of them alone in the room again. Silence closed in on them for a while after and neither of them were in a hurry to break it, only eventually letting it crack when Kakarot took a deep breath.

“That felt...surreal.” 

“...It did…”

“...I think it could work out for you…” Kakarot offered after the silence stopped feeling like a heavy weight; like he was trying to soften the odd tension. 

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” 

“I wouldn’t hold your breath either, you bite when I try that.” 

“...Idiot…” He stood silent for a moment, “What will you do…?” 

“Try harder, I guess. You’re meaner than I am...And...we made a pretty fantastic mess…” 

He was right and cleaning up the mess was an entirely different procedure altogether. 

Vegeta hadn’t the faintest idea where to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished chapter 5 of this thing’s sequel. And I go back to edit this to post and think, aw. How cute. You’re not even /close/ to how dramatic you fucking get. What have I started haha.
> 
> Lmao. At least you know it’s got a lot ahead of it. Chapter 7, the epilogue, and 1-5 of the sequel are all already done. Editing in the works. Hope you’re still enjoying and like drama and idiots who make gigantic stupid messes!


	7. Ti

“...You should at least go see him off,” Kakarot had told him and he couldn’t fathom why he would encourage him to do that, when he himself wasn’t going to be present to see them go. Kakarot, of all people, was usually there for everything; but he evidently wasn’t in the mind to join them in the process of building the portal to push the two future counterparts back through to their world. Vegeta was surprised he took the passive approach in telling him to go see the foreigners back to their own time. 

The dragon hadn’t been able to reverse the original mistake, but had been able to tell Bulma how to build the answer. 

Once built and passed through, then that would be it and they would be gone back to their proper place, and the whole ordeal would be done. He wouldn’t have to see another day of the agonizing tension that came with the traumatic blunder he’d made of the whole experience. 

He hadn’t really even seen him since the altercation and nothing good would come of it to change that. The surprising difficulty of closing that door the last time, had been enough to make him understand that opening it again would offer nothing for him. Should he see him off? Was Kakarot only telling him to go, because the truth of it was, their situation was only uncovered, and their laundry aired, by the poor choices they made? 

Vegeta was absolutely certain his own future self would not quite see the same appreciation for it. He wasn’t sure, he had no idea how the older Kakarot was handling it from his end. The whole top had been blown wide open and he had no one to really blame for it but himself really. They had asked for this and gotten what they’d earned. And what they’d earned was more uncertainty and a heaping dose of misunderstanding, anger and hurt divided between four people in an uneven percentage that he didn’t think he could piece out without a calculator and an advanced degree in mathematics. 

How the hell was he supposed to know how Kakarot viewed him, when Kakarot barely acknowledged his attempts to seek his goddamn attention? How the hell was he supposed to know how bad his attempts to seek his goddamn attention actually were? The fault lied in a poor combination of Kakarot being a dunce and him being raised by a tyrant, with little social interaction outside of individuals significantly out of his range; and that clearly had terrible consequences against them being able to perfectly understand each other. 

He understood nothing. But he felt a spot of remorse if the parallel was truly there. If it was what he thought it was, then the one he broke the silence of bitter fantasy with—the older Kakarot—had spent ten extra years of silence for...nothing, but to watch the subject of that...fantasy, become the steeled bitter hardass that his older self clearly was. Even Vegeta stepped back from himself, to see the result of ten years of difference—though it only appeared to present itself when face to face with him, curiously. He almost seemed...Human, otherwise. 

But the moment he closed in on any distance with his own image, he seemed to become something like a cursed reflection. 

Why would he want to see them off, knowing that would be there too? Was that really why he didn’t want to go? Because he had some bit of trepidation of himself and the judgment he only knew could be fully preserved for himself, by himself. Taking it to a whole new level, in only a way Vegeta could do. 

Yet, he knew that if he let them go through Bulma’s portal without seeing Kakarot through it, and it closed permanently behind him...then he would never find a sense of relief. He would find himself standing at the portal site, wondering if he could have done anything differently to alleviate the feeling it would inevitably leave behind. He said he might be able to fix it with his Kakarot. 

But his Kakarot…Hadn’t given him the same feeling, despite the anger and the possessiveness he’d suddenly burst in with. He had been angry and threw them out into the open without hesitation. He had done everything he could to take Vegeta away from the older Kakarot and for the most part, it had been a successful endeavor. He hadn’t had another moment alone with him, once the fantasy had been sufficiently snuffed out.

That should have alleviated something. Vegeta thought that his sudden attention would have washed away the weeks, nearly months, of attention he’d been taking from the other one instead. Maybe the simple fact that he knew what he’d done, weighed down on the agreement to work it out. Kakarot was forgiving. So much that he felt that he had been caught in the middle of the worst of it, and still was being asked to try and recover the mistake. 

Kakarot didn’t want to lose either, and he was just that much of a sucker. Enough to let Vegeta walk away from what he did without much more than a few words and asking to put it behind them. He thought he’d say more. Be angrier about it. But maybe he recognized that his anger really couldn’t hold ground, if he hadn’t really staked any claim on him. So he aimed to change that instead.

But maybe Vegeta really wanted Kakarot to be extremely pissed off about it. Or show it more. He had been angry enough to drag the older Vegeta into it, but that seemed more intended as a measure to remove the older Kakarot from the equation, not prove that he was torn up about the reveal of it all.

Ultimately, the conflicted feelings about Kakarot—his own—were what made him go to see the other one leave. Perhaps if he went, his Kakarot would be at least marginally annoyed about it, but that was unlikely. The idea came from him, after all; and Kakarot wasn’t the kind to tell him to do something in hopes that he wouldn’t do it. He trusted Vegeta not to step backwards on their attempt to figure out what their common ground now was. 

However, standing in front of the Kakarot he should never have been with to start, Vegeta wasn’t as sure he trusted himself. 

“Where’s...the other one,” he asked, glancing around with some hesitation to raise his voice much louder than a low grumble. There was no sign of his future self in the place Bulma chose—a clearing with a small pond, forested on all sides and tucked away deep into a place where no one could easily stumble into. Bulma had placed the portal into the pond for the sake of making absolutely certain it would be isolated and vanish discreetly once they were gone. 

“He went through already,” he answered, glancing over his shoulder at the still water. 

“...And he let you stay, unsupervised?” 

“He’s probably furious with me. But, he’s been furious with me since I met him. You’d know, yeah?” He chuckled, but the distance in it was obvious. Kakarot wasn’t making eye contact with him and Vegeta wasn’t a fool. Staying behind had likely been a decision he’d made at the last second, after the other one had already jumped through. His older self was going to appear on the other side and probably find he wasn’t there yet. Kakarot was nothing but stupid decisions, after all. But that problem lied with Kakarot, not him. 

None of it would exist when they both walked away. 

“Yes. I am furious with you. You got me into this big fucking mess.” 

The obscene, wide grin that he received in response, offended him beyond all reason. Kakarot had no shame in any of it, of course. He probably didn’t feel the same weight of it. Vegeta felt the temperature of his blood rising and he felt toyed with, just briefly. However, it fluttered away as abruptly as it came, because Kakarot had manipulative tendencies, but not in that degree. The irritation stayed, but he found it impossible to accuse Kakarot of not feeling like he also flew too close to the sun, got burned, and fell back down to the earth. 

“You have a bad habit of following me through my messes, y’know...I guess I just never noticed.” 

“Could have solved your whole fucking problem if you had.” 

“...Yeah. Look at the bright side...You’ll get to see me again in like...ten years or so, haha!” 

Vegeta deeply debating on just throwing him directly into the lake to be done with it. The cheery comment aimed to lighten the mood, but the effect came more like Kakarot’s fist into his chest, in the most unexpected manner. He might have Kakarot, true—provided he could work out the dysfunctional mishandling of their whole situation. 

But no, I won’t ever be seeing you again. Why did you have to say that…?

Everything after their last moments would be new. Separated from what was built in a place that should never have had anything constructed on it. He would have to tear it all down and try to rebuild in a new place and try not to see the old work while refining the new. He was adaptable, he liked to think; but the cold sensation in his chest had him questioning his limitations. 

You were perfect. 

“I’m sorry,” Kakarot’s voice cracked, breaking it’s cheeriness—and rounding off to a softer, less pleasant tone. His face lost the false tone of amusement. He felt it too, then. 

Vegeta stepped closer to him, just shy of leaning against him. Wordlessly, he curled his fist into his shirt and pulled him down to his level. His Kakarot could have the same face, but he’d never have the same presence. He’d never kiss him the same way again. The last one was all he’d have. He needed it, and he hated it. 

He breathed against his mouth, jaw tensed and teeth grinding. “Go home, Kakarot.” 

“Do you still hate me, Vegeta?” Kakarot backed away, not even sparing a glance behind him as he stepped from the dry land into the water. 

“Immeasurably.” 

Not another word was spoken and that was fine, because another word might have been more than he could take. Kakarot swam back, and sank into the water and that was it. He disappeared and the water returned to the glassy state it had been in before—as if it hadn’t been disturbed at all. As if no one had traveled through dimensions just beneath its surface, swallowed up and spit out somewhere else, unreachable. 

He left and the ordeal was done. Vegeta could go home and pick up the pieces of whatever he had with his own Kakarot. The whole cause of this was at his fingers now and he could try and actually obtain it now, maybe. 

Once he managed to get back on his feet. 

The pull of gravity from an alternate universe was much more significant than he considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following this is the epilogue, and when the epilogue to this is posted, I will be posting chapter 1 of the sequel at the same time! Which, I am almost complete with the sequel. This stupid joke project turned serious, and I dunno what happened. 
> 
> Big shout out to my wife, to dreamyghost and cosmicmewtwo who have been my victims in reading these in advance. Y’all honestly deserve hero’s medals for bearing my typos. 
> 
> Epilogue will be coming soon when chapter one is edited. Part two I fucking gave up on word count LMAO, so editing may take a minute.


	8. Epilogue - Do

_“You’re soaking wet, Kakarot—what the hell,” he found words, but they weren’t the first words he needed to speak, they were just the first words his brain could make him say. The quick intellectual processing could only take him so far before he had to backstep and actually assess the situation of Kakarot suddenly appearing before him, in such a hurried state, looking like this._

_Arms wrapped around him and pulled him into an abrupt embrace. He didn’t care at all that he was soaking Vegeta right through as well. That much became clear by the strength of his hold on him. The sheer weight of his body around him gave Vegeta the impression that this wasn’t...his Kakarot. But the very assumption drew a sharp breath from him. “Kakarot—you—”_

_“I’m sorry, she put it in the bottom of a damn lake, it’s not my fault—”_

_Vegeta nearly swallowed his own tongue in the brief moment that his brain wires finally connected._

_The responsible reaction would have been to ask him, how the hell he slipped back through. Why he did. He knew better. He knew coming back would do nothing but reopen the wounds._

_It had been almost a year._

_He was working it out with his own Kakarot. He didn’t need this. They didn’t need this. He should be mending his own relationship—if he’d been successful with the horrorshow that was Vegeta’s own future personality. He shouldn’t be there._

_Do not make this mistake. Don’t open the door this time._

_Do what you should have done last time, and leave it be._

_But he instead he took his face in his hands and brought him close._

_And took the door off the hinges entirely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Seventh Sin [Part 2] will be up shortly, I'm working on the summary and all that now. The series is parts total. 3 multichapter bits and four one shots. Get comfortable.


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